Hello,
Marlon here.
Today I’m going to give you a bunch of small tips that you can use to generate traffic and sell affiliate products. If you ever have trouble making sales with slower, more traditional methods, you can always pull these out and use them to make some fast cash.
There’s only one thing you should take into consideration before you get started: in order to be successful with any of these methods, you will have to have either a website or a blog. You cannot refer anyone to an affiliate link.
Traffic Generation Tip #1: Hand Out Fliers
Believe it or not, this is one of the easiest ways to sell affiliate products. All you have to do is find a general interest affiliate product.
If you’re an Internet marketer, you may be accustomed to selling digital products that explain how to make money in a particular niche (i.e. selling real estate, email marketing, selling products and services online, etc.)
The ‘make money’ niche tends to be a particularly good product type for this method of advertising, so if you’re an Internet marketer, you may be able to do this with affiliate products you already promote.
All you have to do with this method is
1) select a general interest product with considerable appeal;
2) write a review (if you’ve read it) or a summary of that product’s sales page (if you haven’t read it) and post it on a blog with a short URL; and
3) create some fliers. If you select a cheap product, include that on the flier.
Say (for instance) ‘Learn how to flip real estate for a mere $7. No prior knowledge required.’ From there, all you have to do is toss some images on the flier, include details about the product, and then add the URL of your blog in large, visible letters.
You can then print out several hundred; and then hire some college students to distribute them on campus or put them under the windshield-wipers of cars. And presto, in a matter of hours, you should have dozens of people visiting your blog and deciding whether or not they want to buy.
Hint: if you want to go all out, purchase some glossy postcards and use these instead. You can buy some online relatively inexpensively at the following URL: http://www.cactusmailing.com/printingprices.php.
Traffic Generation Tip #2: Cold Calling
Most people who have done cold calls before say they hate it. And there are certainly dozens of reasons to hate cold calling. Above all else, it requires you to contact complete strangers over the phone and more or less beg them to purchase your product. Who would ever want to do that? Yet, even though cold calling has its downside, it also has several advantages.
The first advantage is that you actually get the chance to persuade someone to buy from you through a conversation. You can use your social skills and your wit (which might be excellent) where you otherwise might have had to use your graphic design, copy, and coding skills (which could be lacking).
Additionally, you will get the chance to talk to the person and make a pitch in real time, rather than relying on her knee-jerk reaction to your blog or website. The first part to cold calling requires you to purchase leads.
You can do this at a site such as Sales Genie, which you can find at the following URL: http://www.salesgenie.com. This is one of the largest lead-procuring companies in business.
Additionally, they’ll give you 100 free leads, which you can use to test your skills. Remember to be very careful when selecting the demographic parameters that define your leads. You want to find a group of people who will be very likely to purchase your product. Once you’ve selected your leads, spend some time coming up with a pitch.
Also, come up with a list of 10 things you can say to prevent callers from hanging up – or to get your foot in the door. You can say things like ‘how about I call you back at a better time?’ or ‘would you like me to look up x, y, and z and then get back to you?’ These are all ways you can get your foot in the door; and set yourself up for a future sales pitch. From there on, cold calling amounts to improving your pitch and crunching the numbers.
Make sure your conversion rate is high enough to justify the leads you’re purchasing and the time you spend on the phone.
Traffic Generation Tip #3: Bumperstickers & Business Cards
You might think that bumperstickers and business cards are for desperate Internet marketers, but this isn’t necessarily the case. If you drive around a lot, a bumpersticker with your business’s logo (as well as a summary of what your business does) could accrue several hundred impressions each week.
Don’t write off this approach yet. In fact, head to http://www.cafepress.com right now and make a bumper sticker.
Creating business cards is another low-budget way to get exposure. You can have several hundred business cards designed and printed professionally for a relatively low cost. If you add enough relevant information about your site or blog, as well as information about the products and services you sell, these could be an effective tool for promotion. You could leave your business cards in stacks in high-traffic areas. You could insert them in phone books; and you could place them on public bulletin boards. As you walk around each day – doing your daily errands – you could find new places to add your business cards. Again, it’s low budget and it’s less interesting than other methods, but it works.
If this sounds like a good idea to you, you can have some cards created at the following URL: http://www.overnightprints.com/.
Best Wishes,
Marlon Sanders
September 9th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Wow, that is one looooooooooooong (and rather unreadable) paragraph!!
[Chris, something happened to the blog when we reformatted it. I'll get it fixed.]